Please consider signing this petition calling for a Royal Commission into AHPRA: change.org/p/complete-equity-in-health-care-matters-justice-for-everyone-in-australia Please also circulate it as widely as possible. It would be nice to see it go viral. We all know many people who have been messed around by AHPRA. I know of 6 month delays in processing registration. I know of people who have been hounded due to vexations complaints. In particular the current regulatory climate sets up a situation in which AHPRA is virtually legally obliged to aid and abet these complaints. There are serious issues with regard to: -lack of transparency of proceedings - denial of representation -closed room Star Chamber proceedings where practitioners are cross examined by 3 or more aggressive elderly bullies and the outcome of their case can depend upon the best answer the individual under investigation can come up with under pressure. -incompetent, part time board members who go into closed panel investigations with doctors having clearly not even properly read the reports that were submitted to them. -remarkably slow investigations. The slowness is made worse by the decision making process that depends upon once a month meetings of the board of part time members. - the fact that AHPRA gets extra funding for long investigations- giving them a direct incentive to proceed slowly. - the failure of AHPRA to deal with serious problems such as the doctor who transmitted Hepatitis C to so many of his patients, and was allowed to continue in practice in a setting where he had a known drug addiction and his specialty ensured ease of access to his drug of choice. - delays in providing timely registration preventing many practitioners from starting work when they should have been able to expect to do so within a few days - the proven fact that the most heavily regulated health professions generate the most complaints from patients On this last note, the time wasted in conforming to these excessive regulations, and the cost of doing so,directly impinge upon the capacity of the practitioner to have enough hours available to embark on further medical education. Secondly the adherence to rigid protocols encouraged by this regulation ossifies the thinking of doctors and makes them less able to deal with individual patents who do not fit neatly into the diagnostic categories favoured by the committees who invent these protocols. Thirdly, many patients have conditions too complex and heterogenous (ie CFS, Fibromyalgia, ADHD) to even allow for a meaningful evidence base to be generated. AHPRA, and the rigid thinking behind it, represents a clear danger to everybody who is a patient and to every practitioner dependent upon its approval for the capacity to make an income. It is time for serious change.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 01:42:05 +0000
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